


Miss Pride and Mister Prejudice

by sharlatan



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic), Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: Bitty as Jane, F/M, Lardo as Lizzie, M/M, Shitty as Mr. Darcy, and Jack as Mr. Bingley
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 01:28:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10776615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharlatan/pseuds/sharlatan
Summary: Shitty falls in love at first sight with Larissa Duan, artist extraordinaire. While his friend Jack Zimmermann has no trouble flirting with Larissa's friend Eric, Shitty seems to have a case of foot in mouth syndrome.





	Miss Pride and Mister Prejudice

 

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a fortune must be in want of a wife. Or so Lardo’s mother tried to impress on her for years. When Lardo heard it at five years of age, she thought it was stupidly sexist. When she heard it as she was going through Samwell, she thought it was stupidly heteronormative. But repetitions stick in your head, and sometimes Lardo would catch herself staring at a man wondering whether or not her mother would approve of him as her son in law. **  
**

Her mother would definitely approve of Bitty as her son in law, Lardo thought, as she hung up his portrait on the wall of the art gallery. It was one of her more distinctive paintings; she usually preferred the surrealist style, but she was feeling restless that day and made Bitty pause in the middle of chopping apples to pose for half an hour so that she could make a quick sketch of his lithe figure. That quick sketch became a quick watercolor, and when she bought new oil paints and had some canvas left over from one of her bigger pieces, she christened those paints with Bitty’s profile. It wasn’t meant to be part of the exhibit, but when the curator saw the piece in the corner of all her other works, he had insisted she include it.

“Eric is a good man,” her mother had said. “He’s the kind that won’t mind marrying a headstrong girl like you.”

Lardo didn’t tell her mother that Bitty was the kind of man who would rather prefer marrying another man.

“Oh I can’t believe you’re putting that one up,” Bitty said the moment he stepped into the gallery and saw Lardo carefully affixing his profile on the wall. “We couldn’t have apple pie that day because they turned brown after you made me pause for so long. Is that the last piece you’re putting up?” He sidestepped some people carrying a huge statue.

“Yep. If I sell some pieces today I’m taking you out for burritos.” Lardo said.

Bitty looked at his profile. Painted Bitty had his back turned towards the audience, head tilted so that a sliver of his face can be seen. Lardo had captured a trickle of sweat running down his nape. He thought that she made him look a lot more beautiful than he was.

“Come on.” Lardo tugged at his suit. “I’m hungry and I know that you brought cookies into the break room.”

“It’s about to start!” Bitty exclaimed.

“Yeah, and I’ll have to be here for the whole evening. I need food,” Lardo pushed him to the break room, where there was a pie and various cookies laid out on the table. The other two artists also featured in the exhibit were already munching on them.

“Mandy!” Bitty said, “You’re wearing velvet, you should not be eating those- oh now you have crumbs on your lovely dress. Why am I surprised?”

“Don’t listen to him,” Lardo said as she took a slice of pie. “He’s happy that you’re eating his stuff at great personal expense.” 

Mandy 

* * *

“Shits, I don’t know why you dragged me here.” Jack said, looking around.

“I know you like this kind of stuff,” Shitty said as he closely examined a bedazzled construction helmet. “Take a break from the rough and tough world of hockey and admire art for once.”

Jack smiled. He was the one between the two who liked to admire art. Shitty was the one who preferred to eat it. Shitty must have seen his restlessness today and decided to drag him here to let him relax. The two of them wandered around the gallery. There was an enchanting painting of a man whose back was facing the audience while the sun highlighted the sliver of profile that could be seen. Jack stared at it, entranced, before leaving Shitty alone while he looked for the curator to talk to him about buying it.

Shitty knew that Jack was enjoying himself, but he was shifting and restless. A cool looking woman was standing next to an abstract piece; her chill demeanor and profile caught his eye, and that always made him want to burst full of words. While Shitty usually had no qualms about spontaneously starting conversations, this woman made his palms sweat and his throat close up with nerves. And with Jack talking about buying a particular work, there was no one to unload his words to. By the time Jack circled back to him, Shitty was about to think "fuck it" and drag the woman into conversation. 

“And I take it you’re learning a lot from this exhibit?” Jack teased Shitty, after a red dot had been placed on the tag of the profile. Most of the pieces in the gallery were a mix of abstract, modern, and surreal. “Do you think you’re going to buy any piece here?”

“The only decent piece here has already been bought by you, brah.” Shitty said. He turned to the cool looking woman standing next to a bedazzled jockstrap, glad to finally find a conversation topic. “Can you believe the pieces of shit they call art here? Would you pay two thousand dollars for that?” He pointed at the jockstrap.

She looked up at him. She really was very tiny, and opened her mouth. Shitty was transfixed.

“Of course not,” she said disinterestedly. “Why would I pay for something I made myself?” She turned away and marched away from Shitty, who was left flabbergasted.  

Jack, who heard the entire conversation, merely patted Shitty on the shoulder.

“Why don’t we go get dinner now? Head out first and grab our coats, I’m going to take one last look around the gallery.”

Shitty nodded dumbly and walked to the coat check. He passed the woman who he tried to talk to on the way, but she wouldn’t look at him and he had to walk past with the image of her lingering in his mind. Waiting for Jack took a long time, but it let Shitty recuperate from the embarrassing situation. It was unusual for him, because he almost never got embarrassed.

Jack eventually walked out of the exhibit with a dopey smile on his face that certainly hadn’t been there while they were looking around. He was clutching his phone to his chest and his eyes relaxed even more when he saw Shitty.

“You remember that painting I bought?” he said as they left the building.

“Yeah,” Shitty replied.

“I met the model. He’s a good friend and a roommate of the artist. He was telling me about how one day Lardo- that’s Larissa Duan, the painter- made him freeze up just as he was cutting up apples for pie and sketched him right then and there.” Jack looked down at his phone. “We exchanged numbers, because I figured that I’ll want more pieces from her. And he’s an easy person to talk to.”

Shitty raised an eyebrow. “Does he know you’re Jack Zimmermann?”

Jack blushed. “He said that I looked like someone he sees around town a lot. I’m not sure, but I can always text and ask him. Oh, and I bet you can’t guess who Larissa Duan is.” Jack added.

“Who? Obviously a great fucking painter since you bought her shit.”

“She was the woman who you insulted.”

Jack laughed at Shitty’s surprised expression.

“What a coincidence, eh? Let’s get sushi, my treat.” Jack pulled Shitty under an arm as they walked down the street as he continued to talk about the man that he just met.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I dont actually have a solid plotline for this so comments would help motivate me ngl


End file.
